


When Madmen Lead The Blind

by disamphigory



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), King Lear - Shakespeare, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Actors, Alternate Universe - Hipsters, Broadway, F/M, M/M, New York City, Shakespeare
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-22
Packaged: 2018-02-16 11:00:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2267274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disamphigory/pseuds/disamphigory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Avengers Shakespeare-in-the-Park AU no one asked for that I still feel compelled to write.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Read Through

**Author's Note:**

> There are actor AUs. And then there are Shakespearean actor AUs. This fic neatly combines my two main fandoms into a festering pile of puns, hipsters, theater inside-jokes, and a bit with a dog, because what else is theater?
> 
> Posting as I write, which will be new for me. Reviews, transparently, are a good way to get me to continue.
> 
> The play at the center of this fic is King Lear, because 1) I like that play 2) there are enough parts and 3) watching Phil Coulson's memory issues in Agents of SHIELD was really painful for me. So I decided to pass that on to you, the reader.

There was a lot of plaid in the room, Phil observed. He adjusted his sweater nervously and felt very much older than the crowd of be-flanneled actors already mingling around the table set up in the center of their rehearsal space.

“Young little fuckers, huh, Coulson?” He felt Nick’s hand fall heavily on his shoulder.

“It’s like hipster kindergarten in there, Nick.” He took a sip of his coffee. “Where did you audition? Tisch?”

“Mmm. And Fordham and one come down from Vassar--”

“--The exchange guy?”

“Thor, yeah.”

“So I’m in there with a bunch of college kids--”

“--Well, really just Thor. The rest know what they are doing. And, Phil--” Phil turned and raised his eyebrows in question. “It’s not like you’re not young for the part, as well. Suck it up, you old queen.”

With that, Nick strode into the room and Phil smirked. _Old queen,_  like that wasn’t where he and Nick had _met_.

“Sit down, shut up, and stash your weed in your bags, you feckless ingrates.” Nick’s particular directing style was abrasive, but it got the work done. The herd of plaid rippled as everyone settled around the table and pulled out their scripts. “Phil! Get your ass in here!” Nick called.

Phil entered the room and headed for the only empty seat next to a tiny blond man wearing a t-shirt advertising a Korean taco truck.

“Everyone? This is Phil Coulson. You’ve never heard of him, but he’s your Lear, so a lot of people are going to know that name by the time we’re done. Phil, this is everyone. Now--” Nick gestured at the only other person Phil knew in the room. “Maria, start introductions.”

Maria spoke quietly and with conviction. “Maria Hill. Goneril. Trained at Second City.” She paused. “I don’t do stand-up. Next?”

Nervous titters spread around the room as the redhead next to Maria began speaking.

“Natasha Romanov. Regan. Julliard.” She glared around the room as if in challenge, then settled back in her seat at the lack of reactions.

Phil raised his eyebrows and Romanov went back to writing notes in the margins of her script.

Next was an older man wearing green and purple flannel who ran his fingers through his mop of salt-and-pepper curls before speaking. “Uh, yeah. Hi? I’m Bruce Banner. I’m playing Kent? I--uh--was a physics major at Caltech but then, uh, was encouraged by my therapist to try theater and, uh, so, I did? And, uh--”

Nick interrupted. “I’ll save Banner from accidentally having any self-confidence and let you know that he’s fresh off a run in _Angels in America_.” Appreciative nods all around. Phil leaned in. He’d _heard_ of Banner. Not for his acting, but for the nervous breakdown he’d had right before the opening of a trendy Franco project. He’d effectively broken the show. Nick must be that impressed, or he was taking desperate risks. Phil would know; he was was one of those risks.

“Odin.” A grizzled older man said, wearing, Phil thought approvingly, an old-fashioned 3-piece day suit. “Gloucester, for my sins, with these two assholes.” He jerked his head at the two young men, practically boys, next to him. Phil kept his thoughts to himself. Odin hadn’t wanted to be here and Nick had needed to practically blackmail him out of retirement.

Asshole number one was also wearing flannel and looked like a golden retriever crossed with Paul Bunyan. “I am Thor, and I am very grateful to be here! I am a rising junior at Fordham, and the opportunity to participate in such a noble--”

“--We get it, Thor. You ate your Wheaties this morning. Thor, for anyone who is wondering, is from Canada, and yes, he likes hockey,” Asshole number two said from his affected slouch.

“And this is Loki Laufeyson,” Nick interrupted. “In case you didn’t get the memo, he’s British and we’re going to need to beat that accent out of him by opening.”

Laufeyson opened his mouth and closed it as Nick waved an impatient hand. “Thor’s at Fordham and Laufeyson just done at LADA--”

“--RADA” Laufeyson corrected.

“And some little school called Oxford--”

“-- _Cambridge_ ,” Laufeyson hissed.

“--And there you go: Edgar and Edmund.”

Phil did not feel confident as Thor continued to smile and everyone and Laufeyson slouched and took a sip of coffee out of a ball jar with a handkerchief wrapped around it.

“Oh! I’m next!” A young woman with curly hair, glasses, and an enormous rack covered in purple flannel wriggled in her seat. Phil watched Laufeyson emerge from his coffee long enough to un-subtly drag his gaze up and down her curvy form. God help Phil if this girl was Cordelia...

“Oh! I’m Darcy. Darcy Lewis. I’m playing the Fool!” All heads swiveled to Nick.

He flapped a hand lazily in the air. “Fuck gendered casting blah blah. Lewis: tell ‘em what you do.”

“Right!” More bouncing and Phil clocked most of the sexual orientations of the male-heavy room by their reactions. “So, yes. I did UCB, and then a web series about 20-somethings in NYC. I’ve got a real show coming up, but not until fall, so now I’m here! With you!”

“So she knows her shit, everyone. And, because this cutesy get-to-know-you stuff is eating into actual rehearsal time, I’ll finish this up: Sam Wilson is our King of France, up from DC where he’s just finished up at the Folger as Othello, for obvious reasons. I’m still working on casting Albany and Cornwall. Phil, you’ve met. He won’t mention it, but we met during _Kinky Boots,_ so don’t let the boring sweater fool you.”

“Now, _that_ I would have liked to see.”

The tiny blond guy next to Phil turned to face him, finally, eyes wrinkled with laughter. Phil bit back several remarks, because he _knew that face_.

Tiny recognizable blond turned back to the table. “And I’m Steve Rogers, and I’ll be playing Cordelia.” Phil flicked a glance at Nick, who had relaxed in his seat and was openly grinning as the entire table made surprised noises.

Steve continued, “Park of that whole gender-fucking thing Nick has going.”

Phil tried very hard not to make any facial expression, because hearing that voice say “fucking” was going to be the end of him.

“Let’s see--” Steve started again. “I’ve been out of the scene for few years, but before that I was a--”

“-- _Newsie_.” Phil breathed, then realized he’d said that out loud and blushed.

“Exactly,” Steve said after a pause, then looked curiously at Phil.

“I-uh-liked the production,” Phil stammered. Like he hadn’t seen it four times, then started calling in favors all over the village to get more tickets and paraphernalia when he ran out of money. Like Steve Rogers wasn’t the too-young, too-small shining star that compelled Phil to finally pick up the phone and take his first acting class in his late thirties.

“Great! I’m glad you liked it!” Steve said, beaming. Phil looked at Nick, whose grin had turned shark-like but thankfully saved Phil from himself by gesturing to the trim redhead in a ruthlessly tailored dress next to him.

“And last but not least, our stage manager, Ms. Virginia Potts.”

“Call me Pepper.”

“ _Pepper_ will be assembling our tech team and riding herd on your schedules. Thor. Loki. Get her your schedules. Lewis--”

Darcy scrunched up her nose and started tapping madly on her phone. “Yep yep on it sorry sorry Miz Potts!”

Phil froze as he connected several dots, starting with ‘Pepper Potts’ adding in ‘stage directions call for a storm with lightning and sound effects’ and ‘Nick Fury actually has a tech budget for once’ and came to a disturbing conclusion. But he’d talk to Nick about his potential shit-show of a lighting designer later, because now was time for a read-through.

Banner adjusted his glasses, cleared his throat, and began. “I _thought the King had more affected the Duke of Albany than Cornwall_.”


	2. Tchaikovsky in Brooklyn

Steve dropped his hat in its bin by the door and extracted himself from his raincoat.

“You decent?” he yelled into the apartment.

“Never!” rang out from the living-room-slash-studio. Steve headed in that direction, wringing out his superfluous scarf as he did so. Bucky was resting on his thumbs and forefingers, staring angrily at the floor.

“Caw caw,” Steve said quietly.

“Mother _fucker_!” Bucky fell awkwardly out of his bird pose and glared up at Steve. “I almost beat my record!” he said, pressing his left arm to his chest.

“Don’t think you’re going about yoga the right way there, Barnes.”

Bucky scoffed. “PT just said ‘yoga for arms.’ She didn’t say nothing about any of that namaste bullshit.”

Steve padded lightly over to the patch of sun where Bucky sat, legs splayed in a casual stretch dancers everywhere would envy. The old floor-boards creaked. Steve sat, folding himself up next to Bucky and leaning into him, back-to-back.

“What about your other therapist?” he said, catching their reflection in the wall-to-wall mirror on the opposite side of the room. Bucky had hauled it in when they moved here, mostly for practice, but sometimes he’d take a student.

Steve felt Bucky shrug against his back.

“That’s not an answer,” Steve said.

“Fuck your answer,” Bucky muttered.

“You didn’t go see Doctor Dwakaranath.”

“Nope,” Bucky popped the p in his reply.

Steve took a breath and let it out slowly. “You know they aren’t going to let you--”

“--Maybe I don’t want to go back,” Bucky interrupted.

“What?”

“I said,” Bucky twisted and Steve landed prone on the floor. Bucky loomed over him, evening-golden light picking out the red undertones in his hair, which was falling out of its usual haphazard bun. “I said maybe I don’t _want_ to go back.”

“To the stage?” Steve asked skeptically. The stage was the only thing holding Bucky up, sometimes.

“No. To that _company_ ,” Bucky replied. “To that _company_ and to their _shrinks_ and to their _fucking_ _Tchaikovsky_.”

Steve looked up at Bucky and poked him in the side. “Oh, come on. You love The Nutcracker and you know it.”

Bucky slumped into Steve’s body, letting Steve’s ribs take his weight. “I do. I do _so_ _much_. Fuck.” He lifted his head to look Steve in the eye and smirked. “You were a very handsome mouse-king, my dearest Stephen,” he said in a low voice.

“And I’m so glad you kept that VHS, really.”

“Most handsome man I’ve ever played--” Bucky rolled his hips and Steve felt his own hips crunch into the floor “-- _played_ opposite.”

“Bucky--” Steve began, and looked away.

“Huh? Stevie? C’mon, I’ll be your _Nutcracker_ anytime, my handsome mouse--”

“--Please stop, Bucky,” Steve said quietly. Bucky stopped wriggling his hips and Steve nudged his legs with a foot. Bucky clambered off him with none of his usual grace and retreated to a curl into a ball underneath the barre that ran along the outside wall of the room.

Steve took a second, then rolled himself over onto his side and rested his head on his elbow. “What did the therapist say, Buck.”

“That I needed to do yoga for my arm,” he replied.

Steve counted to five in his head, then counted to ten for good measure before opening his mouth. “What did your _psychiatrist_ have to say, Bucky?”

Bucky’s head hit the brick wall. “Basically,” he sighed gustily, “I’m an asshole.”

“Didn’t know you needed a Ph.d to tell you that,” Steve replied to his challenging tone. “Hell, Buck, I could’a told her that.”

“Apparently I’m _clinically_ an asshole. An acute asshole, really.”

“Sounds uncomfortable,” Steve said. “Have you tried switching lubes?”

Bucky flipped him the bird. “Naw, but basically I’m an asshole to my boss, I’m an asshole to my _sister_ \--”

“--you really should call her. I’m not your voicemail.”

“And most of all I’m an asshole to you, Stevie,” Bucky finished quickly.

“Well, yeah,” Steve replied baldly, because he’d had therapists of his own who muttered about boundaries and clear speech. Bucky flinched.

“But hey, was that ratatouille I smelled coming in?” Steve asked, as a way of softening the blow.

Bucky nodded.

“I hope you tipped the Fresh Direct guy. Living in countries where tipping isn’t a thing doesn’t excuse you from not--”

“--I went out.”

Steve stuttered to a stop. “You went out? You. Went out. Of the apartment? In the daytime?”

“Needed prescription. You were at rehearsal. So.”

“Well, uh, okay then. Farmer’s market, or--”

“--those ginger death-cookies from TJ's that you like are in the pantry.” Bucky said, and Steve slowly sat up.

“Bucky? You took the train?”

“Just a few up to Borough Hall."

“Wow. That’s uh, that’s great!” Bucky had taken to racking up giant taxi bills and, when that didn’t work because taxis hated Brooklyn, proceeded to “liberate” Steve’s motorcycle from the alley next to their building.

“It’s not the fucking Starlight Express, Stevie. Just a subway.”

“--Yes, but I thought you hated, after--you know.”

“Wrenching an arm muscle pulling someone from the tracks is not a traumatic experience.”

“Your therapist tell you that?”

“Worse. My director.”

Steve whistled. “Was this before or after he pulled that clause in your contract out of his ass?”

“During.”

Steve scooted a few feet closer to Bucky. “You couldn’t have let her _die_ , Bucky. We were the only ones on that platform and--”

“--Yeah yeah. Still benched until next season, if that.”

And then Steve got a terrible, wonderful idea. “Hey. _Hey_. Bucky.”

“Mmm?” Bucky rolled his head back and forth on the brick.

“We still need a choreographer for some weird thing our director is doing with the storm scene...”

They let the possibility hang in the air.

“You got dancers?” Bucky asked.

“Yup.”

“Teenage girls?” Bucky sighed. Steve tried to hide a grin. Bucky supported teenage ballerinas more than anyone else in the industry that Steve knew, but he didn’t know what to do with their worshipful gazes and giggling.

“Yep. Some dance school from up in Washington Heights, or something. Fury was unclear.”

Bucky stretched his arms above his head and wriggled. “Oh, why the fuck not. Can’t mope here all day. Plus, maybe one of your actresses is single.”

Steve raised his eyes to the ceiling and accepted the hand Bucky held out to him.

‘ _Why the fuck not_ ’ was probably their show’s secondary title, anyway.


End file.
